Queen of Sheba's Pearls
Author: PyretofSweden
Beta: Not betaed yet
Summary: Another party, another game.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Lame party game
Spoilers: Slight spoiler for Blame it on the Alcohol and its fall out.
Word count: 1653
Genre: Fluff-piece
Pairings/Characters: Rachel Berry, Brittney S. Pierce, Blaine Anderson, Noah Puckerman, Kurt Hummel, Tina Cohen-Chang. (There but not crucial to the 'plot' Finn Hudson, Sam Evans, Artie Abrams, Mike Chang, Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez, Mercedes Jones)
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee. If I did, Puck would not be chasing after older women. The game isn't mine, either. I don't know who came up with it, but I found it through the movie "Queen of Sheba's Pearls" directed by Lasse Hallström. A/N:
"Everybody gather round!" Rachel announced from the small stage in her parents' basement. She was holding her bedazzled microphone tightly in both hands, as if she was afraid that someone would steal it from her. Everyone reluctantly stepped closer to the stage. They had all figured long ago that it was much easier to just go along with whatever she wanted, than try to fight her. She always won anyways, either by getting her way or storming out. And this was sort of her party, so it wouldn't be a good idea to get her mad enough to leave.
"Brittney, stop smooching with Artie! We're gonna play a game!" Rachel said in that overly enthusiastic way most of them found kind of annoying.
"Oooh, I like games," Brittney said with a big smile as she bounced off Artie's lap. "But not Hide and Seek, I always get lost." She frowned and everyone looked at her for a few seconds, but they were so used to her idiosyncrasies that nobody thought much about it anymore.
"Well, good thing we're not playing Hide and Seek, then. I thought we could play Queen of Sheba's Pearls. Does everyone know the rules?" Rachel made eye contact with everyone, and she must have seen a few confused expressions because she giggled a little and explained the rules. It was a simple enough game; one stepped out of the room, and picked a number. The number represented a person left in the room and that person would then join the first person in the other room to look for their pearls. The pearls, Rachel explained, weren't real pearls. The person hiding them got to decide where on their body they were hidden and could change the location depending on how comfortable they were, with the person coming to look for them to touch them. Kurt felt the same dread as he did every time a game like this was suggested, and was about to beg out when Blaine spoke up – the traitor.
"Sounds like fun, Rach! Who wants to go first?" By his eager expression it was obvious Blaine thought this was an awesome idea, and that he wouldn't mind at all to be the first person to hide the Queen of Sheba's Pearls.
"Do you really think it's a good idea, Blaine? I'd imagine things would get very awkward very fast in there." Kurt whispered to his boyfriend, trying to point out the weirdness of two gays playing suggestive games with a room full of straight people. Kurt, for one, could do very well without that experience. "Or have you forgotten about the epic fail that was Spin the Bottle at Rachel's last party?" Kurt hissed in Blaine's ear, but Blaine just smiled that condescending smile of his and explained that they were all drunk then, and they were all friends here. No one was going to think it was strange or freak out. Kurt knew that wasn't true, but he sort of trusted Blaine enough to play anyway. No one had been drinking this time, so maybe it wasn't going to be so bad.
"Blaine, why don't you start us off? Kurt'll be the middleman." Rachel stated as she jumped off the stage. Blaine left the main room to stand in what wasn't more than a closet – used for storing the guests' coats and things when the Berry's where having their famous Oscar parties – and therefore quite cramped. Kurt, being the middleman, went to stand close to the door to be able to hear what number Blaine would pick.
"Oh, fine! Who's playing this round anyway?" Kurt asked, kind of bored because he thought he knew how this was going to play out. And as he'd predicted; all the guys backed away to stand around the walls, leaving the 7 girls. They divvied out the numbers and Kurt asked Blaine to choose a number between 1 and 7.
Quinn ended up being chosen and went into the closet with Blaine. Kurt was getting more and more annoyed the longer it took for Blaine to come out of the closet. And if that wasn't a punch line to a very bad joke, nothing was. Kurt was about ready to knock and ask if Blaine was having another identity crisis when the door opened and Blaine stepped out, looking kind of smug and disheveled. Kurt took one look at his boyfriend, huffed and went to sit next to Mercedes on the couch.
Since it was now Quinn in the closet the boys though it was a good time to start playing. Kurt thought this was going to be the pattern for the evening, when a boy was hiding the pearls the girls would play and vice versa.
Quinn chose Artie, and no one was really surprised when she came out only a short time later. Kurt managed to avoid getting chosen until it was Tina's turn. He felt kind of relieved that it was Tina and not, say, Santana who chose him. He saw Artie and Sam as they both left the closet and they looked debouched, is the only word for it. Artie's glasses where hanging crooked and he had lip-gloss smears in a shade that were definitely not Brittney's. Sam didn't look much better. As Kurt stepped into the closet he made a crack, about the irony of the whole situation, to Tina who gave him a sympathetic smile. Kurt smiled back and took her hand.
"Nope, try again." Tina said and Kurt sighed a little, as he had hoped that she would go easy on him and let him 'find' the pearls quickly. He tried her other hand, but she shook her head and smiled.
"Come on, Tina, give me a break!" Kurt growled and pretended to choke her.
"Ok, ok! Let's say you found them. Around the neck is a respectable place to hang your pearls, wouldn't you say, Kurt?" Kurt blushed as Tina stepped out of the closet, grinning like a loon.
Kurt was left standing in the closet for some time before he heard Tina tell him to pick a number.
"One through eleven, Kurt?" Kurt was surprised by the number of people playing and blurted out "Eleven?" before he could stop himself. He hoped he was lucky enough to have picked his boyfriend. Things wouldn't get weird if it was Blaine who walked through the door. Kurt was disappointed, and not a little bit scared, when the door opened and Puck walked in.
"Why so pale, princess?" Puck asked and stepped closer, letting the faint light from the other room disappear when he closed the door gently behind him.
"I wasn't expecting you to play, and I consider it bad luck on my part. I hope you've washed your hands, this is a Marc Jacob." Kurt replied in a rush as he took several steps back from where Puck was crowding in on him. He let out a little huff as his back hit the back wall, and all ways of escape was cut off.
"No worries. You're calling the shots here, Hummel." Puck placed a hand on his shoulder and took another step forward.
"Oh, wow! You're really good at this. You found them on the first try!" Kurt enthused and tried to escape by ducking under Puck's extended arm.
"Aw, come on, dude! Don't be a spoil sport." Kurt froze at the disappointed tone in the other teen's voice.
"Careful, Puckerman, you make it sound like you want to touch me," Kurt said in a half joking, half serious tone.
"So what if I do?" Puck slid has hand from Kurt's shoulder to the back of his neck.
"I have a boyfriend." Kurt said quickly as he searched Puck's face for a clue – this had to be a prank of some sort – but didn't find anything, except what he'd seen there ever since he came back to McKinley.
"Yeah, no offence, dude, but the Hobbit is a douche. He was totally macking on Quinn before." Puck took a step back and dropped his hand to his side. Kurt searched his face again, but the closet was to dark for him to see much.
"He was not, he wouldn't do that!" Kurt protested, except he kind of knew that Blaine would do that. He'd done it before, the whole maybe-I'm-bisexual phase he went through after he kissed Rachel while drunk was not something Kurt could easily forget.
"He said he's gay!" Kurt argued, though he didn't know if he was trying to convince himself or Puck.
"Yeah, and I said I was straight." Puck argued back as if that was really an argument at all. Everyone knew that Puck was as straight as they come. Kurt put a hand up as Puck took a tiny step towards him, Puck didn't care that Kurt tried to stop him and the hand got trapped between their bodies. Kurt could feel Puck's heart beat a fast but steady rhythm against his palm.
"What are you doing, Puck?" Kurt wanted to know. He looked up to try and see Puck's face in the darkness, but all he saw was shadows and lips that were way too close for comfort.
"I'm looking for the Queen of Sheba's Pearls. What are you doing?" Puck's hand wandered up Kurt's arm 'til it came to rest on his shoulder again, then it slid to the back of his neck to play with the short hairs there.
"Making sure you don't find them?" He meant to sound more confident and make it a statement. But the shock of the revelation that Puck wanted to spend some quality time looking for pretend pearls on Kurt's person made his voice tremble and the statement ended up a question. Kurt looked up at the taller teen to gauge his reaction, but he still couldn't see anything but shadows and smirking lips.
"Good answer."
The End